Sublime

It's no accident, I think, that tennis uses the language of life. Advantage, service, fault, break, love, the basic elements of tennis are those of everyday existence, because every match is a life in miniature. Even the structure of tennis, the way the pieces fit inside one another like Russian nesting dolls, mimics the structure of our days. Poi

I don’t care about any deals, I tell Nick. I can’t sacrifice my life to a deal. I’ll handle it, he says. He doctors a Prince racket, stencils it to look like a Donnay, and I cruise to several easy victories at Indian Wells. I lose in the quarters, but I don’t care, because I have my racket back, my game back.

It’s my fifty-first tournament victory, my seven hundredth victory overall.

His ball smacks the net and just like that, after twenty-two years and twenty-two million swings of a tennis racket, I’m the 1992 Wimbledon champion.

Community clubs aren’t that expensive, it’s a fabulous way to keep in shape, and who knows who they’ll pair you with in the next tournament? Tennis tournaments are one of the best-kept secrets in town,

Pete wakes me from my fantasy. Unreturnable serve. Unreturnable serve. Blur. Ace. Game, Sampras.

think of my skeleton on display at the museum with all the other dinosaurs. Tennis-aurus Rex.

and I tell Perry that I always believed I’d be a great athlete, whether I wanted to be one or not. I took it for granted. It was my life, and though I hadn’t chosen it, my sole consolation was its certainty. At least fate has a structure.